


the way maps affect time

by summerstorm



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Gen, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-08
Updated: 2011-12-08
Packaged: 2017-10-27 02:21:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/290591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerstorm/pseuds/summerstorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alaric never actually moves in; he's just—there, taking up as little space as any person can. It's probably for the best; after all, if he leaves, and Elena has no reason to trust that he won't, she will handle herself better if he never makes himself integral to her life. (Set the summer before season 3.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	the way maps affect time

**Author's Note:**

> Holiday fic for earnmysong and scorpiod1.

Alaric never actually moves in; he's just—there, taking up as little space as any person can, coming and going from his apartment when he needs new clothes even after Elena tells him he can use the linen closet (the only one that's not in a bedroom; Jenna's room is not an option). He passes out in the couch every night and is awake before Elena every morning. Three weeks in, a duffel bag moves into the space by the fireplace, and he starts to take showers in the master bathroom. The second month he's there, all the bills are paid before Elena gets around to opening the mail. He never hands them money, but he picks up the slack when Elena's not there to stop him; he doesn't clean or cook or buy groceries the way someone in charge would, but he does his best to keep the common spaces tidy and the fridge full. It's not that different from the way things were with her aunt: they do what they can to make life easier on Elena, and leave her decisions to her.

It's not _bad_ ; Elena appreciates the independence, and after almost two years, she doesn't miss the way her dad used to talk her through every important decision and her mom constantly asked if she'd done her homework, if her friends were coming by, if she was going to stay out late. She understands why Alaric doesn't do that; she doesn't doubt that he cares about her and Jeremy, but he's no relation, Jenna's still down as their legal guardian, her death undisclosed, and she hardly expects Alaric to adopt them. Not when she's almost eighteen and he seems to change his mind every other week on whether he's here for the long haul or he's leaving Mystic Falls the next day. Sometimes she catches him fingering a pocket-sized street map of Durham, folding it and unfolding it until there are new lines on the paper, and she remembers that Isobel wasn't just her biological mother: that she was Alaric's wife, too, and the reason he came here.

If he leaves, and Elena has no reason to trust that he won't, no reason to expect it, she will handle herself better if he never makes himself integral to her life. That was definitely different with Jenna; she was attached to them, emotionally and otherwise, and responsible for them, personally appointed by her sister to take care of her sister's kids. Jenna wasn't much of a parental figure, but she mothered them in her own way: she forced them to talk, she listened, and Elena trusted she'd be there when she came back home. Rules came with the steadiness package. There's no steadiness package now, and the idea of Alaric telling her what she can and can't do is almost funny; she can't even picture it.

For the first month after Jenna's death, after Stefan leaves, Matt drops by every other day, gives her random pieces of advice for living alone. She knows he had, has it much harder than she does, but she appreciates his help, even when he writes up a list of laundry tips—complete with a handful of examples of things he's seen her wear—and she remembers the day he spent learning the ins and outs of her washing machine and helping her do her first load of laundry. Her parents had been away for the weekend and she'd run out of clean underwear. She'd felt so mortified watching him separate her dirty clothes; they had started dating not long before that, she hadn't realized yet that it wouldn't work out, and even things she'd done a million times before in front of him, like taking off her shirt and throwing it in the laundry basket, felt new and revealing now he—they—allowed his eyes to linger on her skin.

The frequency of Matt's visits is directly proportional to how often Alaric leaves; she's not even home when he offers Jeremy a job. Bonnie starts coming by more after that, though, like Jeremy's absence makes it easier for her to be around Elena in Elena's house. Elena hadn't even noticed Bonnie was uncomfortable before; she hadn't noticed _she_ wasn't entirely at ease, either, too distracted by Elijah and Klaus and everything going on to pay attention to the fact that her best friend was dating her brother and that wasn't exactly the kind of situation where Bonnie could do, be, both things at once.

They try to bake a cherry pie one afternoon, and watch a movie while it bakes and later burns. The kitchen isn't completely full of smoke, but it's a close thing, and Elena steps out while it clears out, goes to the Salvatore house to badger Damon about finding Stefan for a while. It doesn't yield any results, but when she gets back home, the oven and counters are clean and Alaric's rescued half a bowl of battered, perfectly red cherries out of the crust. He's sitting on a chair and trying to suck a piece of cherry off his finger.

It's not an attractive visual at all—in fact, he looks kind of ridiculous—but it takes Elena by surprise how much he looks at home. Especially how much he looks at home for someone who still goes elsewhere to shave, and hasn't taken over any drawers, and only stays for dinner two or three times every week. Her breath catches in her throat, and she has to force herself to let it out as she walks towards him, sees the blackened, broken lattice crust on the counter by the coffee maker.

"I didn't know if you wanted to do something with that, so I didn't throw it out," he says, and he's not done talking before the pie is in the trash. Elena considers throwing the pan out with it, but it empties easy and dry, like Alaric took care of that, too. She leaves the pan in the sink, opens the tap until it fills with water, and grabs a cherry from the bowl on the kitchen island.

"Are we making dinner?" she asks, heading for the fridge. When she looks back, he says that's fine with him. Jeremy gets home just in time for the three of them to have a normal dinner at an actual table. She's a little surprised he sits down instead of saying he'll eat later; their summer hasn't been very routinely so far, and Elena still remembers what he was like before Vicki died and she asked Damon to stop Jeremy from losing it completely. She remembers how irregular his schedule was, how often she didn't even know when was the last time he'd eaten. For a little over an hour, they manage to talk about things only minimally connected to vampires—Jeremy's job, the plumbing problems that have cropped up in Alaric's apartment and he's not sure are worth dealing with, the movie Elena watched with Bonnie, the colleges Elena has been vaguely eying in case she decides to apply to any in the fall, how Matt's taking his break-up with Caroline—and Elena feels, for that little over an hour, like she's not missing anything. Like she's not missing anyone.

It's nice while it lasts, even if it doesn't last long, and doesn't happen all that often after that. Even on days she feels like she's come to terms with losing all the people she's lost, days her grief isn't as heavy, she still feels the weight of death all around her, crushing her hometown, or she can't stop thinking about Stefan, where she is, what he's doing, if this is something he can come back from, if she's strong enough to see him through it. She's not going to give up before she's even found him, but sometimes she feels weary, and it's not from the search. It's like she's already found him and lost him again—like he's given her more than one chance to save him and she's failed again and again.

Damon rescues her from those moods sometimes, if only by being infuriating enough that she focuses on remembering he's lost his brother, too, and yelling won't make Stefan come home any sooner. Besides, the house belongs to her, and it won't do any good if either of them destroys it in a rage.

Still, there's only so much anyone can do to keep her sane. Bonnie's trying to spend as much time with as many people as she can before she's dragged away to spend the last few weeks of summer with her extended family. Jeremy features pretty heavily in her plans, and Elena's not desperate enough for company to forbid Jeremy from getting home at dawn. She's not that lonely. In fact, she's not lonely at all; when Bonnie's not around, Caroline often is, taking her to parties and making sure she talks to people and drinks enough to stop thinking about going home. Caroline's busy, though, somehow even in the summer, and she's trying to patch things up with her mom now that they're not lying to each other, and it's—it's good for her. Elena wants her to be happy. She just—as much as she hates to admit it, even to herself, she feels better when there's someone else home.

For the first few weeks after Jenna dies, she doesn't keep track of who comes and goes, and she doesn't have to call anyone over. Later on, when her friends think she's stable enough to be left alone, she makes a habit of calling Jeremy and Alaric, in that order, every evening when they're not around, and ask if they're having dinner in her house or elsewhere, if Alaric's staying over, if Jeremy's meeting Bonnie for breakfast or if Elena should change and make a run to replace the empty jar of instant decaf he likes before the store's closed. There's a regrettable night where she's far too bored and shows up at Damon's with a bottle of whiskey she finds in the back of a cupboard.

He frowns at it and says, "You know you don't have to bring your own beer." He seems to find it amusing, but he takes the bottle and leads her in.

"No one else was going to drink it," she says, and he stops to nod at her, like he's something between confused and impressed that she's—what? Making sense? This close to rock bottom? Because this is it, isn't it? This is rock bottom. She went over to Damon's—Damon, who killed Jeremy once, who force-fed her his blood not so long ago, who's currently in a stable relationship with someone he's manipulated into accepting him for what he is, and, to add insult to injury, who looks like he doesn't even want to find Stefan most of the time. She came specifically to see him, and specifically to get drunk. Because that's not a monumentally bad idea.

But all he says is, "For a second there I thought you were Katherine," and she takes the chance to start asking questions about _why_ they can't seem to tell her and Katherine apart on the spot, and by the end of the night she knows more about vampire physiology than she ever wanted to. She even understands it, though in the morning the only thing that makes sense is the fact that she feels like crap after matching Damon drink for drink for an hour. (After that he replaced her glass with bottled water, and by then her balance was not with her anymore, so she could hardly do anything but complain and comply.)

As far as bad ideas go, it doesn't turn out so bad, but it doesn't make it any less regrettable in theory. It's still another week before the first time she calls Alaric and asks him _what_ he wants for dinner, and another week before she has the guts to tell him she feels lost and disoriented and doesn't want to be alone. He shows up minutes later with messy hair and rumpled clothes, like he was taking a nap when she called, and she feels guilty for all of two minutes before he notices and tells her he won't let her. He gives her a very brief, very awkward speech about the importance of asking for help before you're too many feet underground for a hand to reach you. He doesn't actually finish, stops when she tries so hard to suppress a laugh she forgets to hold back her smile too, but she's kind of touched, and she realizes there's something a little symbiotic about this. She needs someone who'll stick with her as much as he needs something to do, someone to help now that Isobel's gone for good and Damon's as stable as he's willing to be.

For the most part, she holds it together. She doesn't come unglued. She's not as good at being stoic and in denial as Jeremy, but she thinks it's healthier to let herself cry every now and then, let out the pressure in her stomach. It's too hard not to, and it's always more painful when she pushes it down, more of an uphill battle when she waits until she's alone instead of take the shoulders Bonnie and Caroline are always offering her.

Sometimes she wonders if that's how Stefan felt all these years, if the instinct to kill was so strong it never went away, only piled up until he crashed under the weight. She wonders if there's any way to make it easier, and sometimes, when she's frustrated because Damon won't talk to her and she can't even place Stefan on a map within a tri-state margin of error and Bonnie's out of town and Jeremy's taking extra shifts at the Grill, she wonders why Stefan ever thought his instincts were worth fighting. She wonders if he ever will, and, if he doesn't, if there's going to come a day she looks around herself and realizes the only surefire way to save him is to take his life—well, what's left of it—away.

That way lies a breakdown, though, and there's always a voice in the back of her mind telling her she'll be fine as long as she pushes through it, as long as she doesn't crack. Some days she forgets why, but the fear remains—a part of her is certain if she loses it she won't be able to get back up again.

Alaric is still sleeping in the living room, more and more often these days, but the duffel bag disappears one day, and later that week she throws some sweaters—plural—he's left behind in the laundry and clears out a shelf in the linen closet, just in case. A few days later he comes back from his apartment with a waffle-maker, claiming Elena's was made for people with five hands. "Isn't that good practice for handling weapons?" she asks, making room for it in a cupboard, and Alaric snorts somewhere behind her.

"I'm willing to fight for my safety," he says, "but I draw the line at fighting for my food. Like to think of it as a perk of having made it this long without getting killed or turned into a creature of the night." His tone is resigned, straightforward, and it occurs to Elena she can't remember the last time anyone said the word _vampire_ in her presence. Even Caroline steps around it, and Caroline's not exactly a paragon of subtlety. Or secrecy. She talks about drinking blood more often than Elena's comfortable with on grounds of grossness, for one, and Elena doesn't want her to stop.

"You don't have to coddle me," she says, turning around when both waffle-makers are safely stored, and Alaric frowns at her.

He tilts his head. "I have breakfast here six days a week. I'm not that selfless."

"No, I mean," she begins, her eyes narrowing, but she finds she doesn't know how to pursue that topic further. Maybe she's reading too much into it. Maybe the subject of vampires just hasn't come up as often as she's used to, with Elijah and Klaus gone and Damon on a steady deathless diet. She's not used to this sort of peace, and a part of her wants it to last forever. She knows the pain will fade, eventually. She doesn't want anyone else to die.

But she doesn't want to lose Stefan, either.

She doesn't notice Alaric moving closer until she feels a finger under her chin, stroking lightly before tipping her face up. "What's wrong?" he says, and she looks up. She hadn't even realized she wasn't. His voice isn't sharp, but it's not permissive either; it's the kind of tone that won't accept denial for an answer, just like his thumb on her chin is asking her to meet his eyes.

The problem is, she doesn't have an answer. Everything is a little bit wrong. There's nothing in her life that hasn't been affected by her relationship with Stefan—by his presence in town—and, even though she can't blame him, it's hard not to think what if. It's not like he's around to talk to, to distract her, to remind her she has him and he's someone worth holding onto. All she has is a list of deaths shuffling through her head, a vampire and a witch for best friends, a brother who lost two girlfriends on top of the people Elena lost as well, an ex and old friend whose only family who'd stuck with him was turned and staked, and the knowledge that somewhere, Stefan's hating himself, even if it's only in flashes, even if he turns it off when he can—and that's not a relief.

She breathes in deep and her shoulders slump, brushing Alaric's chest. He's warm, close like he meant to hug her, but being hugged will just make her burst into tears, so she clutches the edge of the counter with one hand, stands on the tips of her toes. Alaric's presence is tangible, real, and she can't help grabbing a fistful of his shirt, her fingers climbing it until they're wrapped tight around his collar. For a second, he closes his eyes, like he doesn't want to see where this is going, but he doesn't move and she doesn't let go. He feels solid when he looks at her again, solid and present like very little in her life does these days. She tilts her head up, vaguely aware of his thumb falling away, and waits—waits until his composure cracks and he kisses her.

It's not as kind as she expected; in fact, it's not calm or soft or slow at all. There's something hungry about it, and she finds herself responding in kind and wanting more, wrapping a leg around his thigh to pull him closer and then bouncing on her foot so he'll pick her up. She's almost given up on that when the room whirls around for a few seconds—he's not as fast as Stefan, not as strong, and there's a moment of disconnect before she adapts and remembers to cooperate.

He sets her down on the kitchen island and goes straight for the hem of her tank top, yanking it over her head. It takes her a moment to process that, too, the realization that this is leading headfirst into sex, that she hasn't slept with anyone since Stefan left, that she wants to—right now, she wants that so much she feels lightheaded, desperate. Her hands are ahead of her, working on his belt. In the rush they're in, it's not long at all before her underwear's bunched around her feet and he's shifting away.

"I don't have any condoms on me," he says, and she laughs breathlessly, enjoys, just for that moment, that that's a concern again before she shakes her feet so her underwear will drop to the floor.

"I don't care," she says, but he laughs at her—the nerve—and bites her lip and says, "Yeah, you do." He moves away again, but this time he moves down her body, biting the swell of her breast, teeth softer on her nipple when he pushes her bra aside with his mouth, and lower, now, on his knees, rolling her skirt up and burying his face between her legs with a groan.

She expects more carefulness than she gets; she doesn't expect him to eat her out messily, like he's enjoying it too much to concentrate, and she doesn't expect it to get to her the way it does. In a way, she's always been lucky in love—she's always felt wanted—but all she can think about right now is how long Alaric has wanted her. He makes her come twice before he moves, and even then it's only because Elena pulls his hair softly, bats at his shoulder, and, when that fails, asks him to take her to her room, and makes sure to tug him down with her when he drops her on her bed.

It's the first night he doesn't sleep on the couch since Jenna died. It's the first night Elena feels like no integral pieces of her are missing.

It's not the last.


End file.
